The Tucson Film and Music Fest was launched in 2005 by Michael Toubassi of Upstairs Film, and it seeks to fuse the creative communities of film and music with its diverse programming.

The TFMF accepts features, shorts and music video submissions from all over the world, with an emphasis on documentaries and music-related content. Films and filmmakers with a connection to Arizona or the Southwest are also highlighted, and the festival gives lots of very welcome support and exposure to the local arts.

Above: Textural and character elements

Tucson Film and Music Festival: 2014 Spaghetti Western Intro
I’ve always loved the look and feel of the classic 1960’s Spaghetti Western credit sequences. With so many films released within the genre there are of course a number of different styles at play, but when taken as a whole I think that the overall vibe and highly creative motion graphics work is hard to top.

With all of that in mind, this was an intro that I directed and animated for the 2014 Tucson Film and Music Fest as a tribute to the general Spaghetti Western form. Seen here are a number of animated elements based on the original poster art, and the song you’re hearing is entitled “El Chumbanchero”, courtesy of Portland, Oregon’s fabulous Audios Amigos.

Above: Animation elements

Tucson Film and Music Festival: 2013 Spot
After edit­ing down one of my favorite Tuc­son jin­gles from the past to use as an audio track, I based my ani­ma­tion on ele­ments from the TFMF fes­ti­val poster as well as var­i­ous vin­tage late ’50’s/ early ’60’s com­mer­cials and graphic design.

Finally I tossed in a smat­ter­ing of time lapse pho­tog­ra­phy that I’ve shot in and around Tuc­son over the last few years so as to further underscore the “Sun­shine Cli­mate Club” tourism vibe that the song exudes.